Modell's, Fanatics brace for record sales of Eagles Super Bowl gear

At a Modell's Sporting Goods store on Cottman Avenue in Philadelphia on Monday morning, Modell's CEO Mitch Modell -- straight off a plane from the Super Bowl in Minnesota -- was walking around, selling Eagles title gear.

Modell was pumped.

"This will be our all-time best championship," said Modell, who owns 158 stores, including 28 in what he considers to be Eagles territory. The business has been running since 1889.

A representative for Fanatics, which has run the NFL shop for more than a decade, said the Eagles' victory over the Patriots in Super Bowl LII is projected to lead to the second-best championship sales in its history, falling right behind the Chicago Cubs' World Series title in 2016.

Sales in the first nine hours after the Eagles defeated the Patriots?41-33 were up 60 percent as compared to the first nine hours for the Patriots' championship last year.

For Modell, the Eagles' victory is not only exciting, but a big relief.

"The stakes were so high because we took so much risk," said Modell, who said he preprinted more that he ever has for such a big underdog.

If the Eagles lost, Modell said, everything he printed would have had to have been thrown out.

Instead, it was ready to go as the stores opened immediately upon the Eagles clinching their first Super Bowl title. Those stores reopened again at 5 a.m.

"I've never seen anything like this," said Modell, who sold plenty of merchandise for both Giants victories over the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII (2008) and Super Bowl XLVI (2012). "Every fan who comes up to the cash register has four or five items in their hand."

Given the locations of the stores and the fact that it was the Eagles' first Super Bowl title, Modell said he expected to do at least 10 times better business with the Eagles winning versus if the Patriots had won.

The city's last major pro sports title came in 2008, from the? Phillies.?The Eagles last won a championship in 1960.